Procrastinating, Kingdom Saving, and all other forms of Geekdom

A New Day of Independence?

By now most, if not all, of you reading this have seen the movie Independence Day. In it, Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman save the Earth from an alien race determined to wipe out all of mankind. It’s hard to believe (by me, at least) that the movie, released in 1996, has been out for almost 20 years.

Lately, there have been rumors (as far as I know, nothing has been confirmed yet) that say they are planning on making one, if not two, sequels to it. I’ve heard differing stories about it. I’ve heard that Will Smith is on board for two new Independence Day movies. I’ve heard that everyone except Will Smith is on board for one more.

Whether they actually make one (or two) sequels or not, my only question would be: who would the bad guys be?

Due to something said in the original movie, however, they made it hard to bring back the same aliens as the antagonists. This is the quote, said by Bill Pullman’s character (the U.S. President) after attempting to make peace with the alien that Will Smith captured:
“I saw… its thoughts. I saw what they’re planning to do. They’re like locusts. They’re moving from planet to planet… their whole civilization. After they’ve consumed every natural resource they move on… and we’re next.”

He said that their “whole civilization” was with them. If the whole alien civilization was there, then all of them would be dead. As I said, with a statement like that, it makes it hard to bring them back. Hard, but not impossible. After thinking about it, I can see three ways to bring them back.

One: Simply say that the alien purposefully fed the president false information.

I don’t like this one for two reasons. One, it’s a cop out. Two, the aliens seemed to be arrogant as hell. It probably thought it was going to get away from them, so there would’ve been no reason to lie about it.

Two: Some of them survived the ship crash and managed to get away.

This one is iffy too. The argument could be made that there were areas of the ship that withstood the crashing of the spaceships well. They survived and escaped into caves where they bred an army to replace the one they lost. This one would be harder to believe than the next one, however, as the movie shows the spaceships blowing up pretty thoroughly before they crashed.

Three: Some of the aliens in the fighter ships flew away and regrouped.

This one makes the most sense and is the most plausible. It said that there were 10-15 of the big city-ships. Each of the city-ships had what looked like at least 100 fighters on it. The original movie clearly shows that there were some fighters that survived the destruction of the city-ships. If the writers say that even as low as 10% from each city-ship survived, then that’s anywhere from 100-150 of the aliens that are still alive.
This also makes the gap in time in between the movies work for them. Now, the aliens have had almost 20 years to breed and build their numbers back up in order to strike again at the planet that almost wiped them out. Of course, they could always make it a combination of explanation Two and Three, having the aliens attack from the air and underground.

Then again, they might go a completely different direction and have a different set of aliens this time. Or, it might not have any aliens in it at all. Who knows? Either way, I’ll watch it.

Of course, if I was in charge of the story, what I would do is have the aliens be responsible for bringing the zombie virus down with them (It didn’t affect the aliens, but it affects us humans). Independence Day 2 would be them fighting the human zombies. Independence Day 3 would have the virus mutate and start having the corpses of the long dead aliens come up and start attacking.

What do you think, dear readers? Can you think of a way for the original aliens to come back that I missed? What do you think about my sequel story idea? What do you think about them doing a sequel to it, in the first place?

They move from world to world… their whole civilization… but, what if Earth was too small for their whole civilization and so only one of the 5 mother ships was sent Earth’s direction and that means there are still 4 other ships out there?

I think I’d go with the first sequel happening right after the end of the movie, rebuilding everything that was destroyed, discovering ways to incorporate alien technology – the bad guy could then be a radical group that gets ahold of some weaponry and tries to assert their dominance, or it could be that the alien technology is detrimental to our health, or… something along those lines – a more subtle threat but just as deadly as invading masses.

Whatever the sequels end up being, if they end up being at all, I’ll watch them.

They couldn’t go with it happening right after the first movie. None of the actors can pull off looking as young as they did in 1996. I agree that the sequel should be set in that time, but, if they were going to do it that way, they should’ve made it already. Waiting this long to make a sequel makes no sense.

*cough cough* Blade Runner *cough cough* Hmm, though now that I think about that – it’s a prequel they are making for that one, right?

Yeah, despite the power of CGI, I agree they should have already made the sequel if they wanted to do a continuation of the previous story. I think you are probably right about the hidden aliens regrouping and plotting their revenge.

I’m not to happy about a sequel, since most sequels to my knowledge aren’t…well, they’re just not.
I liked your idea, it could work, and it’d make a pretty awesome zombie movie. Could we recommend you as the script adviser/writer?

The only other way I could see them making a sequel is by “us” studying the technology in their ships, repairing at least one of them (but as you said, they looked pretty done in so a stretch) and then setting off and becoming the invading “aliens” ourselves on some other planet. But that doesn’t make much sense and doesn’t really fit the ID theme, unless the planet is about to go kaboom … but still, eh.

I like aliens being the ones responsible for the zombie virus much better.

I thought of the concept of us being the invaders, too, but I discarded it for the same reason you did.

The beauty of the zombie idea is that you can set it right after the first movie because all of the original cast had close contact with the aliens. Therefore, you could cover up the fact that they’re now 17 years older by putting zombie makeup on them.

Honestly, I think too much time has passed. I mean, they could have done a sequel immediately afterward where the cleared up the remaining aliens. Some of them had to survive the crashes, but after 17 years what can you do? And those dudes are all in their 50’s and 60’s now. Will Smith is probably the only one who is in any kind of shape to do another movie.